Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay was doused in petrol and held at gunpoint as he tried to uncover the dark world of illegal shark fin trading for a new TV show.

The Hell's Kitchen star was shooting scenes for Big Fish Fight when he confronted gangsters in Costa Rica who had slaughtered thousands of sharks to sell their sought-after fins.

But Ramsay was left terrified when the gang kept their guns trained on him and his TV crew before throwing fuel over him. He was later advised by local police to flee the country for his own safety.

The chef tells the Daily Mail, "It's a multibillion-dollar industry, completely unregulated. We traced some of the biggest culprits to Costa Rica. These gangs operate from places like forts, with barbed-wire and gun towers.

"At one, I managed to shake off the people keeping us away, ran up some stairs to a rooftop and looked down to see thousands of fins, drying on rooftops for as far as the eye could see. When I got back downstairs, they tipped a barrel of petrol over me.

"Back at the wharf, there were people pointing rifles at us to stop us filming. A van pulled up and these seedy characters made us stand against a wall. The police came and advised us to leave the country. They said, 'If you set one foot in there, they'll shoot you.'"

the disappearance of sharks in the oceans is one of the saddest things for me. Good on Gordon to try to illuminate this. We hear about the handful of shark attacks all the time. It's front page news is someone gets bit. It's front page news if Ramsay gets lit on fire. The daily workings of these cartels, and the international trade and consumption of shark fins in China, buried.
Sharkwater was a pretty good movie about this issue.
Destroying a keystone species so a few people can make a quick buck. Gotta love this civilization.

the disappearance of sharks in the oceans is one of the saddest things for me. Good on Gordon to try to illuminate this. We hear about the handful of shark attacks all the time. It's front page news is someone gets bit. It's front page news if Ramsay gets lit on fire. The daily workings of these cartels, and the international trade and consumption of shark fins in China, buried.
Sharkwater was a pretty good movie about this issue.
Destroying a keystone species so a few people can make a quick buck. Gotta love this civilization.

Yeah, my wife was talking about this trade a few months ago and some of the things I've read on it have been disturbing.

normally i can't stand Ramsay...but cudos to him for bringing this important story to light
imho, human beings are fucking stupid by nature and we will never learn or change

i've always thought that agent Smith (Matrix) summed up our species perfectly when he said...and i quote...

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."